I am just soooo excited!! I am jumping up and down on the one spot, doing backward somersaults, forwards flips, and landing on my nose ( I am not a very good acrobatic bear , you know! Annabelle the acrobatic bear who tours with the Teddy Town Troupe of Circus Bears is such an excellent trapeze artiste though!! She wears a lovely bright pink wrap around swishy-soft material tutu dress with sparkly sequins on it!! And do you know why she wears this item of clothing? Well, because her circus job position is a trapeze artiste, every day she flies through the air from one bar of the circus tent to another one! These bars are high, high, high up in the topmost point of the circus tent! It really is up high, I think I told you that??! I would feel so very, very giddy if I was so high up in the air! And I don't like heights at all! Annabelle though just flies gracefully through the air, just like a teddy-bird. She also performs somersaults, and handstands and backward flips during the circus show too. She has so much energy, and always lands the right side up! ) Anyway, back to why I am just sooo excited. Well…when I was a little teddy, I liked trains…and my like of trains has never left me, in fact it has just got stronger. That is the reason why I really like the fact that Strathalan is so close to Macleod Train Station. Sometimes I sneak out of the Kiosk, do a "hop, skip and jump" down a secret pathway, hide behind one of the seats on the train platform, and just watch the trains come in and out of the station. If you ever do see a little teddy down there, just give me a little wave, and I will give you a little friendly return wave which means: "happy travelling to your destination!" When I was little, I would put on my peaked train driver's cap and get out my very special train-tooting whistle that was given to me for my birthday once! It is gold in colour, and when I blow on it, it makes the bestest "toot toot" sound that you could ever imagine. Even just thinking of it now makes me remember how happy I was when I blew that whistle! I don't do it now, because I have to be a bit more aware of my extremely important position of being the official Kiosk Ted, and if I blew a whistle it might give all the Residents a fright! And they may think that a train is coming right into the Strathalan grounds! And they may get worried, and then we would need to call an ambulance, or maybe a fleet of ambulances if a lot of Residents got a shock, and..and… no, I just won't blow any whistles!

Anyway, why I am just sooo excited is that my teddy friends and I have just had a ride on Puffing Billy! Yes, the real steam powered train which chugs along and there is real smoke that comes out the top!! I even got to hang my little teddy head out the window whilst we were riding in it! It was very nice feeling the fresh air hitting my face whilst the train went chuggety-chug along the tracks. My friend Tommy Teddy came with us.

Oh, I just have to tell you about Tommy's recent train adventure! He is a very athletic sporty type of teddy, and he has been training for the Annual Teddy bear Fun Run. There are literally thousands of us teddies who all congregate in the one place, and when the start official raises a huge flag with a picture of a smiling teddy bear on it and blows his specially designed "fun-run starter's whistle" (which is completely differently designed to a train-tooting whistle , you know!)  all the teddies start off running as fast as their little teddy paw feet can take them!! It is just a sea of teddies of all shapes, sizes, colours and heights! But…there is NEVER any unfriendly jostling for positions. No…everyone just chats to each other and catches up on each other's news…that is between taking gasps for air and some huffing and puffing because running can get quite exhausting! And especially talking when running is even more doubly  exhausting! And talking, giggling and running at the same time is triply tiring! There is always teddy bear encouragers and cheerers-onnerers that line the edges of the paths where all the teddy fun runners are travelling though. Bottles of water are also generously distributed to all the runners .

 But anyway, that doesn't really tell you about Tommy Teddy's train adventures does it! Well, there is a connection you know! Tommy was training for the fun-run and after putting in so much effort with training, he decided to catch a train back to his home. He boarded the train, sat down on a seat…and promptly fell asleep! And he did not just fall into a little nap or a little snooze, he instead fell into a completely deep sleep and started to snore! Well, that is what Trixie teddy told me because she was on the same train and in the same train carriage section as Tommy was. She had to disembark 8 train stops before Tommy's destination. She gave him a very friendly "nudge" and poke" to wake him up before the time came for her to disembark from the train. He woke up with a start, and had a nice little chat with Trixie and they discussed the weather and exchanged family news and talked about  the latest news headlines that they had heard on the radio, and then the time came for Trixie to get off the train. After a friendly hug and a happy "goodbye" call, Trixie was off onto the train platform and heading home. In the meantime, the train started off again but…Tommy was just so very tired again after his  fun-run training that…he fell asleep again!  But this time, he stayed asleep and missed getting off at his right train station stop!! He just stayed asleep until the train eventually reached its end destination! It was at that precise moment, he discovered that he was at the wrong place, and he started to get a little concerned! What could he do? How would he get home? He was such a confused little teddy bear! And you know how you feel when you wake up after being in a deep sleep, you feel a little blurry in the head. But don't worry; there is a bright and happy ending! A very nice, friendly and helpful little girl saw this poor little teddy looking quite bewildered and she exclaimed to her Mum: "We just have to help this teddy, he looks quite sad! " And they discovered that he had a train ticket that was marked with his home station, so they very, very kindly escorted him over to another platform and helped him get onto another train that was going in the opposite direction to where he came from, so would take Tommy homewards. Tommy was so thankful to them! Do you know what?  They also bought him a cheese and lettuce sandwich for him to munch on the way home because they thought that he looked a little bit hungry! This time, once Tommy got on board the train he made sure that he kept his eyes open as wide as could be so that he didn't fall asleep again! Once his train station was in view, he jumped to his paw feet, gave a little teddy-jig about, and then jumped off the train as soon as it pulled into the station. Sadly though, in the midst of his train adventure, his favourite wrist band must have fallen off his arm, and so he now has lost it. It will be sitting quite lonely on a train seat, travelling from one train station to the next, a reminder of Tommy and the time he fell asleep on the train!

Hmmm.. I think talking about trains and Tommy has made me feel a bit hungry myself. I think that it is a perfect time to have a little snack. Seeing I have been telling you about Tommy, I think that I will grab some "tommy" -themed food items from off the Kiosk shelves. Now, what can I find that is "tomato" flavoured? Well… I can have some Spanish tomato soup with tomato flavoured sakata biscuits. That combination of foods sounds nice! Goodbye, I'm off to enjoy this snack now!

Until next time,

             Don't fall asleep if you are travelling on a train!

                         Your friend, Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                       Also simply known as "Ted"!!